The Fix-It Man

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Jude finally said it, completing
the dreaded transformation into his own father. He released a long, defeated
sigh. Jude’s son, George, continued to screech. At eight-years-old, the boy
could yell on a professional level, and he had been at it for exactly forty-five
minutes. Jude knew this for a fact: he had timed it with the tiny clock stuck
to the dashboard of the truck with a suction cup. Forty-five minutes was a long
time to sit with a screaming kid sitting between you and your wife in a hot
truck. Jennifer reached across the headrest and gave Jude’s shoulder a quick
squeeze, a symbol of solidarity between two soldiers in a foxhole.

They were traveling over the
hills and through the woods to grandmother’s house. Although Jude would never
admit it, not even to himself, he hated the trip. The previous night he had
even relived the old nightmare, of parking the truck outside of the white
house, only to find his mother dead inside, a skeleton picked clean. Still, he
and Jennifer loaded up George and they made the drive twice a year–Memorial
Day and Christmas. Since his dad passed, they simply had to do it

God
damn, it’s hot, he thought.

“George. Just. Shut. Up.” He was
not going to yell. But it was enough to earn the death glare from Jennifer, so
he took a deep breath and counted to ten very quickly. Why did the AC always go out right before Memorial Day? he thought.
The car smelled of sweat and his wife’s hair spray.

Counting to ten again, he
reminded himself of The Situation. The boy could not help it. Three different
doctors had been clear on that point. George had an emotional disorder, which
meant that these outbursts would happen. The
boy was also smart. Scary smart, Jude admitted. Smart enough that he ought to be able to occupy himself for a measly
two-and-a-half hours. It’s not like we didn’t bring him toys and a new comic
book.

In a moment of inspiration, Jude
gripped the wheel firmly with one hand and reached into the abyss behind the
seat. Digging in the deep pocket, Jude hid his disgust as he fought past used
tissues and a miraculously still-sticky peppermint. He nearly dislocated his
shoulder to do it, but he managed to drag out the prize and toss it on his
son’s lap.

George picked up the red Etch A
Sketch and fiddled with its two worn white knobs. Jude thought back to when he
was about George’s age, taking apart the same toy to see how it worked. It was
filled with something not-entirely unlike sand, and the knobs moved a little
stylus that wrote in the gray sand sticking to the clear plastic screen. The
red plastic frame held it all together. I
control the vertical, Jude thought. I
control the horizontal. You could draw anything you liked with a little
difficulty, and–with only a quick shake–you had a clean slate.

The instant George recognized
the toy, he was placated. “Dad! Thanks!” The boy doodled happily.

Jennifer smiled at Jude, and he
returned her love with a wink. She reached over and gave his shoulder another
squeeze, and everything was all right. Sure, it was hot. Sure, his mom’s
skeleton was waiting for them. But this was his family, and he loved them. They
loved him. He might only be a fix-it man working out of a beat-up old truck,
but they had everything they needed. It would be okay.

“How about I turn the radio back
on?” Jennifer asked. George had drowned it out so completely with his screams
she had turned it off.

Jude wiped the sweat off of his
forehead. “That—that would be great.”

The knob clicked, and they
listened in peace as Charlie Van Dyke, sitting in for Casey Kasem, guided them
through numbers thirty-seven to twenty-three on the top forty countdown. The station
was finally lost to static, just as it always was at this stage of the trip,
right in the middle of Jennifer singing along with John Cougar Mellencamp about
the eternal domination of authority. Nothing was found to take its place but
white noise, so click, off went the radio.

The car in front of them drove
at a steady fifty-five. That damned law,
Jude thought. He agreed with that new Sammy Hagar song. Fifty-five was just too
damned slow. He glanced over his shoulder and started to move, only to hear the
sudden blaring of a horn. His cheeks burning with embarrassment, he cursed
whoever had knocked off his side-view mirror in the supermarket parking
lot. Who
does that and just leaves? he
wondered for what had to be the millionth time. He let the car, a red Fiero,
pass. The license plate, ‘2HOT,’
mocked him as it zoomed by. The driver’s hand waved out of the tinted window,
as if it say, “No hard feelings!”

For a few minutes, the only
sounds were the wind and the tires on the road–and the scritch-scritch-scratch
of George’s toy, of course. Jennifer broke the silence. “What do you think
about the new school?”

Jude curled the toes in his left
shoe. He noticed she avoided calling it the special school. “I dunno, Jennifer.
They don’t even know for sure what’s wro—what the deal is with George. He could
still adjust at the public school.”

“You know it’s not totally about
that. It’s about how smart he is—the recruiter said he could be the next
Einstein. The next whatshisname, the atom bomb guy. Oppenheimer.”

Jude grunted. “That’s exactly
what the world needs.”

Jennifer ignored him. “And he
isn’t adjusting.” She looked down to make sure that George wasn’t paying
attention and leaned over toward Jude. She whispered, “Remember Linda, Joey’s
mom?”

Jude nodded. “Sure. They’re the
ones with the big house on Riverside Drive.”

“That’s right,” Jennifer said.
“She told me that Joey—Joey said that every day in gym, anytime the coach left,
the kids stick George behind the mats under the basketball goal. Then they take
turns hitting him.”

“What!” Jude said it loudly
enough that George looked up for a second before shaking his toy and starting a
new drawing. Jude sighed and whispered, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want you to get mad. I
called the school, and they took care of it. I made sure.” She looked at Jude
and frowned sweetly. “Jude, honey, you know he needs something different.”

Jude shook his head, but not in
disagreement. “Okay, okay. We’ll think about it. They said they could get him a
scholarship, right?” There was no other way they could afford it. Jude always
had plenty of work, but the pay was never that high.

“Yep. A full ride.”

Jude grinned down at George. “He
sure is a smart boy, isn’t he?”

“The smartest little boy ever,”
Jennifer said in a singsong voice, patting George on the head. He did not seem
to notice.

Jude smiled. Things are looking up, he thought. They
were all healthy, and his one-man business kept them in the black, if only
barely. He could fix anything given the inclination and half the parts. Heck,
he could have fixed the AC if he’d just had some coolant. The truck was running
fine despite the heat, lack of AC, and the missing side-view mirror. He patted
the truck, silently affirming it. Good job. Just
last us a little longer, okay? There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. 1984 was
turning out to be a pretty good year, after all.

“Dad! Look!” George held up the
drawing toy.

“What ’cha got there, Georgie?”
Jude asked.

“I figgered it all out, Dad.”
George pointed to a stick figure in the middle of the gray screen. “See? That’s
the Me Now. I figured out how to be the Me Back Then.” He pointed to a stick
figure on the right side of the frame. Jude glanced down for a second at the
crude drawing, everything connected by a single unbroken line. It looked like the
figure on the left was surrounded by numbers. It looked like actual math.
George excelled at math, but this looked more complicated to Jude, maybe like
calculus. But it was just lines on a toy. “When I grow up, I’ll go be the Me
Back Then,” George said.

Jennifer smoothed George’s hair.
“That’s great, sweetie. What will you do when you’re the ‘Me Back Then?’”

George beamed. “I’m going to be
a fix-it man, just like Dad.” That made Jude grin, a mix of pride in himself
and pride in his son. George added, “I’m going to fix everything.”

“Everything?” Jude asked.

“Everything.” George repeated.
Jude and Jennifer smiled at each other. The exchange clearly meant, We really do have a cute kid, don’t we?

They came up on another slow
car, this one going a full ten miles under the speed limit. Jude checked his
mirror, glanced over his shoulder, put on his signal, and started to pass the
slowpoke.

Honk! Jude pulled back into his
lane and looked over his shoulder. It was a red sports car, a Fiero. It zoomed
by, and a thin hand waved from the driver’s window. The car’s license plate, ‘2HOT,’ was just over-the-top enough
that Jude took an immediate dislike to the owner.

“Wait a minute,” he said.

“Hmmm?” Jennifer looked up from
her magazine.

“Didn’t that car just pass us a
little while ago?”

“Honey, I have no idea. Maybe
they got off the highway and got back on.”

Jude shrugged. “That’s probably
it.” He checked his mirror again and passed the slow car.

“No,” he said, “something is
weird. Could you turn down the air conditioner? It’s so cold in here my brain
won’t work.”

Jennifer reached over and turned
the knob down to medium. “How’s that?”

“It’s still weird. Something’s
off. I can’t put my finger on it.”

Jennifer closed her book and
looked at him, her eyes serious. “Honey, are you okay? Do we need to pull
over?”

Jude shook his head. “No, no,
I’ll be fine. It’s probably nothing.”

Jennifer shrugged. “It was sure
nice of the boys to cover for you at the shop so we could visit your dad.”

Appreciating her attempt to keep
things positive, Jude agreed. “Yup. There are times it’s nice to be the boss.”

But for some reason the subject
made him uncomfortable, so he turned on the radio. A catchy tune came on that
he hadn’t heard before. The car bounced along to the music. “Hey, that’s pretty
good. Who is that?”

“It’s that new Janis Joplin
song. They play it all the time. Jude, are you sure you’re okay?” Jennifer put
her hand on his forehead. “I think you should pull over.”

Jude looked into the back seat
of the car. George was intent on his finished drawing, tracing the lines with
the nail of his index finger.

Jude suddenly felt dizzy, and
the car swerved over the yellow line in the road. Jennifer grabbed the wheel.
George was already crying hard by the time Jude pulled the car into the dirt
beside the road. His stomach churning, he fumbled out of his seat belt and
fought with the car door. He couldn’t find the handle.

Mercifully, the door popped open
just in time for Jude to lean out and lose his breakfast.

Laying his head on the steering
wheel, he became aware of Jennifer calling his name. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he
said, but his voice sounded far away, where someone was crying.

When he finally looked up,
Jennifer was pulling out her cell phone. Putting his hands over hers, he said,
“Honey, no need for the cavalry. It was probably just those eggs I had this
morning.”

This did nothing to calm
Jennifer. “Jude, you know you didn’t have eggs this morning. Your doctor said
no more eggs until you get your cholesterol down. I’m calling him right now.”

“No, no, no, it’s fine. Let’s
just sit here for a minute, and I’ll be fine. Could you call my mom, tell her
we’re going to be late.”

Jennifer did not answer.

“Jen—?” he asked, looking to the
passenger seat. It was empty.

“Jen!” he yelled. That set off George
again. He yelled bloody-murder from the back seat, his arms thrashing.

“Shhhhh, Georgie, it’s okay,”
Jude said, trying to be soothing. Why had he started yelling? He knew it always
set George off. It had for years. Ever since his wife—

“Jen?” he said again, not sure
why he should be asking for her again after so many years.

“What?” she answered.

Jude’s eyes bugged out as he
looked at his wife. She looked worried. “Honey? Are you ready to get going
again?”

“No. Something is wrong. Call
the doctor.”

Jennifer laughed. “‘Call the
doctor?’ Sure, let me just pull out my magic phone and I’ll have him come right
over.”

“Just a minute ago. You said—” But what had she said? he wondered.

Turning around, Jude said,
“Georgie, please stop yelling. Honey, could you—” But, of course, there was no
one else there to help. George was yelling so hard that he was going hoarse,
and his face was turning bright red. Jude climbed out of the car. The light
rain that had been building overhead all day finally started to fall. When it rains on a sunny day, that’s when
the devil beats his wife, Jude thought. That was what his mom used to
always say, when she was alive. He went to the back door, trying to think ahead
to how he was going to sooth George, but the crying stopped as his hand touched
the handle.

Jude opened the door into an
empty back seat.

He looked around. What am I doing here? he thought. Why am I driving an empty car in the middle
of nowhere? He looked around, but there was not another car in sight, and
he could see for miles. Threatening clouds were building up to the west. He
could not even see the damn road he had been driving on.

“Jude,” a woman’s voice called
from inside the car. He ducked back inside but it was empty. There was nothing
in the car but fast food bags and a toy in the back seat. What’s that doing in there? he wondered.

He took the Etch A Sketch from the back seat and looked at two stick figures. One was surrounded with numbers and symbols and letters. Jude’s eyes stung from the wind.

“I’ll fix it,” he said, and started to shake the toy. But there was nothing there to shake. The car was gone, too. And then there was just an empty stretch of ground.

@garaujo1 I dig the original X-Men run, even the later stuff by folks like Arnold Drake. It establishes so much, from Sentinels to Juggernaut to Magneto and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants to Xavier dying over and over again.

@Barry_Cinematic Yes, it is! I think Screamers is cut, but no idea if they removed gore or bore. There's a longesr version on Dailymotion. I watched it on Prime and had fun. Your mileage may definitely vary! dailymotion.com/video/x20x2dm